Ave Atque Vale
by Aloice
Summary: XIII AU where Alexander doesn't arrive for Hope, and he becomes a Cie'th instead. Lightning/Snow/Hope as family and friends, maybe a bit of HopeLight if you squint.


**A/N:** Also cross-posted on AO3. Quotes are from Catullus 101 and Louise Gluck. This fic has been on my mind forever and I finally sat down to write it. Suffice to say I have a lot of feelings about Hope's Alexander summon scene. Maybe I'll write a Hope POV too although that'd probably be way shorter and in the poetry form. Leave a review?

* * *

Ave atque vale. _Hail and farewell._

She lowers him from her arms in the heart of Orphan's cradle, balances his image under the knowing eyes of Cocoon's god; he will be waiting there in the beyond – guarding their flank – a witness to what they've been through and what they will pursue, a boy who has dared to challenge the gods. The pure white light of the Narthex grants radiance to the pale stiffness of his form, the seeming lingering softness of his hair. She wonders if he'll continue to dream, after all's said and done. If they'll dream together, when she makes her exit.

 _Wait for me_ , Hope, she whispers, and Barthandelus in his anticipation through the final doorway _smiles_.

* * *

Hope was unconscious when they found him by the stream, and unconscious he has remained, death-still and crystal-pale and fragile like a baby bird. She's picked him up and carried him back to the camp while Snow's made the fire; they have tried all kinds of things to try to get the boy to wake up, to no avail. His breathing is shallow, his pulse uneven under the searing arrows and crimson of his l'Cie brand. They all know it is as far to the end as they can get without seeing the boy erupt into a terrifying mass of foliage and mangled crystal.

Fighting the progression of the l'Cie brand is like fighting ocean waves, impossibly exhausting and exhaustingly impossible. She knows this; has felt the pain herself at the back of her mind, constantly pushing and tagging, piercing and almost unbearable at moments, beats of exhaustion and nightmarish visions that rock her in battle and sleep. She's resisted falling through never looking down, and has only so far succeeded because she's known nothing else. Not everyone else has been that kind of unfortunate.

 _He's so young_ , she thinks as she gazes at him, so worn and beaten, a ragdoll tossed around by the cruel winds of fate. What had she been doing when she was fourteen? He has followed her through the Gapra Whitewood to Palumpolum and the _Palamecia_ , and then he has punched through all the horrors in the Ark, battered his share of faith into what remained of Cid Raines. He's done so much. Yet he doesn't belong here. He should never have been here.

 _He's fourteen. Fourteen's too young for this._

Another hour. Vanille tries to get him to drink but he can't swallow. What are they going to do if he's just going to sleep forever? _It won't be forever_ , the voice in her head says all knowingly and she bites back a wince. _And he won't even get to crystallize like Serah._

* * *

When he opens his eyes it almost feels like everything is going to be okay.

He stirs, speaks – and then reaches out with a hand, as he wistfully tells the tale of a place he has no right to know anything about. There's a deep weariness in his bones but he still manages to breathe and stand; he rises of his own accord before he crumples, and his voice breaks into a sob that she never wants to hear again, but she manages to get a hand on his shoulder, comfort him and smile at him as he stares up at her with those haunted seafoam green eyes. It's going to be all right. He's not anywhere as burdensome as he thinks. She's going to give him the biggest hug in the world and perhaps even the gunblade commando lesson he's been craving forever. Snow will go on carrying him on that trenchcoat back through the steppes and the hills if he has to. He's also not yet encountered his eidolon –

He buries his face in his hands, chokes out the words. There's something in his face that wounds and shocks her to her core. Her heart drops, her eyes –

"But that's what scares me! I don't… I don't want to see you get hurt because of me. It would be better for everyone if I just stayed behind!"

And then his brand suddenly _explodes_ into dark rays instead of holy ones and he _shatters_ in front of her, disintegrates into limb and shadow and a blood-curling scream that sends pulsing torrents of tainted vermillion down swelling arms to blossom entangled hell flowers, and he turns towards her with terror-stricken eyes as the sinister light devours the final delicate features of his face, _robs_ him from her –

And Hope Estheim has transformed into a Cie'th before Lightning Farron's very eyes, and before she can give the right reaction – before she can step forward to reach for _him_ instead of instinctively falling back to reach for her gunblade – he has turned and fled, wailing, into the night.

* * *

Snow's strangled croak forces her out of her trance: "That did _not_ just actually happen."

She starts, falls down to her knees, numb tingling in an ocean of empty – and then she's slowly gathering what's left of his garb on the ground, pieces of orange and black and white fabric. She can't put the pieces back together. She can't put him back together. But why are there so many bloodstains and blister marks on these fragments, signs that seem to be almost weeks old? How long has Hope been suffering, and has he been saving his cure spells?

Suddenly, her (frequently-cured and curasa'd) ribs are hurting again.

* * *

Sazh makes the first constructive comment like the mock father figure they all desperately need: "We can't just leave him like this."

How long has it been since he… it… fled? Five minutes, ten minutes? It's been so sudden, so unexpected, so _wrong_. She still doesn't know how to feel or think. _He is gone_ , the voice in her head repeats, motioning through the syllables without comprehending their meaning. _He's actually gone._

Fang's reply is curt. "Don't want to leave him to things like the Undying, yeah. But is that even still him?"

The usually cocky girl is shaken, she can tell; Fang's turned sideways and hidden half her face behind her dark veil of hair, and Vanille's trying to hold onto her protectively instead of the other way around. Fang's committed herself to their family at the edge of the Ark only to have it die on her. _If it can happen to Hope, it can happen to Vanille. While an eidolon has come for Fang and all the rest of us, it hasn't come for Hope, and it might not for Vanille._ The words slip out before she's had a chance to properly process them. "Does it matter?"

"Of course it does! We could have perhaps done something for Hope. We can't do anything for a Cie'th. I _know_ the two of you won't let me kill him." Fang spits out the last word like poison and she feels herself reach for the blade the same moment Snow tenses as if to strike. A sardonic edge seems to creep into Fang's voice as the other woman notes her companions' antagonistic stances. "The only thing we can do is to go to Oerba. You heard the boy. It's his final wish, too."

"It can't end like this." She realizes she has almost been _counting_ on Snow to make the irrational comment. "There has to be a way to turn him back. There _has_ to."

"There isn't!"

"But we came here believing that we can rid ourselves of our brands! If we can ever stop being l'Cie, there has to be a way to turn back Cie'th!"

Fang glares at the blonde man for a moment, and she gets the feeling that the Pulse woman is resisting the urge to stick her lance through him as she turns around and hounds Vanille towards the road. "Well, do what you want. He's your problem. I'm going to Oerba with Vanille. Sazh, Lightning – are you coming?"

The older man sighs deeply as he rises. "You've got a point. I'll go."

Fang turns questioningly towards her. She turns, instead, towards Snow. "Snow."

"I'm staying behind." The same passion that had possessed Snow at Bresha seems to have returned. He stands defiantly where Hope had left them, arms spread wide as if he's daring them to shoot. "I need to find him and figure out a way to turn him back. It's my fault that he's here and like this in the first place. I owe it to him and his parents. We'll… catch up with you in Oerba."

"Good luck, hero," Fang sneers, although she can _almost_ sense a tinge of begrudging admiration in the other woman's voice. "And you, Lightning? Will you come with us?"

She knows what's the right thing to do; she's left Snow bloodied and bruised in front of Serah's crystal statue in Bresha, and she could very well do it again, accuse him with every foul word she knows and even suggest that he's picking Hope over Serah. They should just package the hate and despair and turn it into anger, let it drive them as they continue their journey to save Cocoon… but then she remembers the winding circles of the Gapra Whitewood and the last traces of his human warmth against hers as she held him in her arms last night, the hesitant thumps of his heart and then the anguish in his eyes. The eternal darkness of a Cie'th, his belief that he had been failing them… What kind of a partner would she be to leave him on these terms? Hadn't she already failed him enough?

"I'll let you know tomorrow," she says, and disappears into the woods.

* * *

 _The night isn't dark; the world is dark._

 _Stay with me a little longer._

Where has he gone, and why can't she see him anymore? His tortured expression flashes back into her mind, the pain and love and longing all weaving into one thread. She wonders if Snow is following her or if he has gone on a separate path; they need Hope for different reasons, and both of them will remain just a dose of incomplete without him, him without a compass, and her without an anchor.

"Hope? Hope!"

It doesn't matter that he doesn't have a name anymore. It matters that she's searching, reaching, chasing the remnant of what the name used to mean.

She looks for him through the woods and past the monsters and it takes too long. She stops by a rock to catch her breath, and the desert of her eyes sting more than tears. _I must keep going. He's gone on for so much longer on so much less_. A part of her questions her motive and methodology, wonders if he'd even be grateful to be found, if he had run away from her in the first place; another is lost, an abandoned partner and – sister? Mother? Friend? – of one she has pledged to protect and love, craving just an answer in this world of wrongs.

 _Come back to me, Hope, if just for a second, if only to say our farewells. I'm scared to be alone, and I don't want you to be alone._ A fist, a narrowing of brows; a promise.

 _I won't allow you to be alone._

* * *

She finds him, eventually, at a spot terribly reminiscent of her summoning spot at the Vile Peaks: a rusting bridge, freefalling water, a sky without stars, and too much aching in her heart. This time she runs up to _him_ as he stands alone on the bridge and she can tell it's him by the way he flinches, hesitant about her approach. There are things that don't change even when sentience is erased: he still _assesses_ with the wreckage of his senses before he commits, and there's a sensitivity about him that's utterly heartbreaking.

She doesn't know if she wants to really _stare_ , really discern his lost child's face behind all those disfiguring layers of crystal, but then she tries and her soul goes to pieces and she loses her will to fight him.

"Don't just stand there, you know!"

She reacts just in time to see a large white shape nearly fall on top of the cie'th.

"No, Snow, you idiot, don't –"

Is she pulling him away from Snow, or is she pulling Snow away from him? _This is Palumpolum all over again, except worse_ , she thinks dimly, as both thrash under her and they're nearly falling off the bridge and he's cold to the touch and _this is wrong, everything about this is wrong, this shouldn't be happening and she wishes she can turn back time so it doesn't come to pass._ He fights them when they get too close, it's a divine programming he can't resist just as he couldn't resist the transformation, but then they overpower him through pure desperation ( _he'd be so upset if he could know, that he would be as vulnerable as a cie'th as he had been in life_ ) and they're pleading to him, trying to get to him, trying to feel for him. It's stupid human sentimentality, more useless than trying to get through to a crystallized Serah, but at least Serah _looked_ like she was in peace and he's most obviously _not_ and the idea of losing a second person they both love to eternality ( _eternal damnation instead of eternal life, no less_ ) is just a bit too much to bear.

She doesn't know which one of them felt it first, but his despair and regret suddenly hit like a Pulse war machine and they're both reeling from the impact. He stops resisting, sprawls out as is, a terribly grotesque thing that she can't even bring to pity. It's just so wrong: he's always been a fighter and survivor. He's always wanted to change things, make them better. The only time he's truly despaired has been when he became convinced that he has become his loved ones' liability. The passions the boy has harbored for Snow, the world and the Fal'Cie have turned inwards and driven him to destroy himself, and nearly nothing of what once had been Hope Estheim remains.

 _Is it too late? Is it really too late?_

The amorphous mass of what remains of her partner next to her says _yes_. She re-grasps her blade wanting to say _no_ , even as she can almost feel her own brand starting to twist and turn.

"Lightning –"

She tries. Oh by the gods and their l'Cie she tries what she can. They're no longer actively running for their lives and Serah's already crystallized and the Sanctum's not within range to fight, so she'd be damned if she doesn't give Hope this one attempt in one night. She provokes and dances and caresses and shouts, and if only –

" _Lightning_."

She stops, turns around slowly. There's something broken in Snow's irises that she wishes she has never seen.

"Can't you feel it? He's hurting. And he wants to die." Snow whispers and she finds him faltering, shifting his weight, "I don't know if it's worth having him hurt like this through all the days it would take – maybe we actually should –"

She knocks the large man away with a kick that has just too much regret behind it, sends him flying. Snow lands a dozen feet away from them, unconscious. It's for the best. She knows what she must do.

* * *

As the sun rises, she fights him over and over.

"And _again_ ," she taunts as he misses a swipe on her, even as she thinks her voice is about to give out and it'd be a sweet mercy, if only her eyes can maybe give out too so she wouldn't have to look at him anymore, "who said they were going to get tough?"

There are so many other things that she could say and that she wants to say – that she's sorry that they didn't take more breaks in the Ark, that she shouldn't have forced him to basically walk the plank on the Palamecia while being absolutely terrified of heights, that she shouldn't have let Fang take him on as many Gran Pulse expeditions as she did, that _he should have said something_ , that she never ever wants to fight another child cie'th again in her life – but she swallows them and only keep up her pace, continue in this thankless practice that had claimed his human strength in the first place. If he had become too wounded to keep fighting as a human, he'll eventually grow too tired to move as a cie'th. And if he would just stay _still_ …

She has a lingering suspicion about something that Fang and Vanille had only hinted at a few days ago.

It doesn't take too long, to her relief; just as Snow's finally starting to stir again she senses the monster just across from her start to stiffen, _change_. Snow joins her a while later when he is told. He doesn't complain about her, and she's grateful – they simply circle around, hour after hour, him taking the beating and her healing it, absorbing the physical manifestations of the pain of the cie'th. Hope doesn't actually want to fight them. She's guessed that from how he had run away instead of charging right at them like one of the Undying.

 _Your heart, Hope. Was that the last thing you told yourself to remember before you were lost? To not become a danger to us?_

 _Soon you'll have less to feel. It'll still hurt, but it'll hurt a little less. It's so that we can take you with us. We'll take you where we'll go, in the hopes that we'll still recover your heart, somewhere, someday. You've taught us that we can't just let the things we love disappear._

* * *

"Is this what you thought it'd be?" Snow asks – not without wonder – as he collapses at the end of the bridge, peeking at the rounded shape on her back. Gold and green, and the shape of a silver-haired boy clinging to an outcrop of crystal – it's still grotesque, but far more beautiful and reminiscent of the boy that had been than whatever they had been fighting the entire night.

"Yeah, that's a Cie'th stone," a familiar voice growls somewhere behind them, "now how the hell did you manage to turn him in the span of one night?"

"Fang." She smiles wanly as she crashes in a heap on top of Snow and nearly lets the load on top of her crash into the earth. It manages to settle, seemingly protected by its hard shell. Three of her companions are coming through the bridge. "Sazh. Vanille. You all came back."

Fang crosses her arms disapprovingly and curses. "Don't ask. This is more ridiculous. Just the two of you? And you somehow managed to make it work?"

"He still hurts," Vanille adds solemnly, poking at the edges of the stone, "but I suppose if we can finish his focus –"

"It's _already_ our focus. We all have the same one. Ragnarok." Fang rolls her eyes impatiently. "And I'm assuming you didn't kill him because you still have that stupid glimmer of hope –"

"Can't you hear him? His voice, through the stone." _Save Cocoon_ , Hope is pleading, small and scared and so filled with love; _save Cocoon and all its people. Save my friends. Save them all._ Visions flood back through her dam of control, images of that all-encompassing smile that shines like the moonlight in his hair and that winged hope in his voice like stubborn dawn and snowmelt, and she struggles up to rebalance his image, let it float up. He deserves far more than just the echoes of his memory – he deserves the entire future – but it's the most that she can now give.

Fang's voice slowly grows from puzzled to incredulous. "You're telling me you're going to carry that _entire thing_ to Oerba and… Cocoon?"

"We take our own back to their homeland on Cocoon, I'm sure it's the same with you." Snow nods; Sazh splutters. That's all the Cocoon confirmation one needs in the world.

They set off for Oerba later that morning, humans and l'Cie brands and Cie'th stone. She alternates with Snow, carrying the stone at dusk and dawn, and it somehow makes her feel at home. He's heavy on her shoulders and she thinks her shoulder blades are screaming the same way his must had been before that one night in Vallis Media, but no one will hear her complain, not even once. His is a weight that she must bear. It is how she will atone.

* * *

The timeline ends with a ring of Cie'th stones in Orphan's Cradle, pointing the way for all the future l'Cie that would inevitably come through. They are arranged in a peculiar pattern; it would seem that one had been placed there before the others. While the five often specifically ask for the salvation of the one, the one would always pray for the liberation of all.


End file.
